OOM's.. the final frontier!
If their prices are good (which they say they will be).. that local shop should be a good bet if you don't fancy getting all the bits and making it yourself. It's probably true to say that for the most part.. shops like this (and the bigger vendors of course) can throw a pc together for a lot cheaper than you or I could source the component parts for but 'key' to this is the quality of the components. You obviously won't get high-end components in a rig costing £300 although the spec may suggest otherwise
For us lot sitting on the fence developing mould.. our concerns are centred around one thing.. flightsim.. will it run it and how well will it run it. FSX brought with it the spectre of the dreaded OOM.. something I'd never seen (and still haven't) in all my years with previous incarnations of the sim. If your system has a 32-bit OS which is only physically able to address a gnats do-dar over 3gb.. running a prog like FSX which will gobble up to 4gb of your memory will leave you open to this problem though depending on your type of flying and scenery e t c.. you're not guaranteed to get them. My WinXP is 32-bit and I've not had an OOM for a while now but this is due to me knowing what I can do and get away with. If I fly around the Portsmouth scenery I put together.. I'll get one whether I want one or not
Getting a 64-bit OS as a starter, while not guaranteeing a lack of problems running FSX, will push you further out of the danger area because a 64-bit OS is not tied to the 3gig memory barrier. I only have 4gig installed in my Win7 (64-bit) system and have not seen an OOM though I have been able to make it very tired
You can throw more memory into a 64-bit OS and it will see it all even though the program you're running may not be able to utilize it. On my WinXP 32-bit system.. I could install shed loads of ram on the motherboard but the OS would still only see 3gig because that is all it can address. (I actually have 4gb installed and Windows reports 3.25gb)
It's a bu99er really. I've never been interested in 64-bit systems as I don't run 64-bit programs. It's just that FSX (and Prepar3D I fear) will use more than a 32-bit OS can address (if pushed) so the only real escape from this issue is to run them on a 64-bit OS which can make available all they'll ever need and more if you have it installed. Alex's solution is quite elegant I think. Disable virtual memory completely and have installed as much physical ram as the OS will ever address but you need a 64-bit OS in order to do this as well as the dosh for all that ram
A 32-bit OS would still only address 3gig
If you're only going to run FS9.. none of this matters
That's the OS out of the way.. next, the hardware!
M$ want whacking with a big stick!
ATB
DaveB
EricT
) that it is the best OS I have ever used. With PC's I have had every MS OS going back to Win 3.1 and DOS 6.2. XP was great and almost as reliable as W7 from my experience.
